Urban Meyer… the situational ethics of El Chapo Guzman

– Official About The Urban Meyer Mess Column –

9 out of 10 Big Time College FB/ BKB Coaches (not YOURS, of course!) have the moral compass and situational ethics of Pablo Escobar and El Chapo Guzman…”

It went viral. I keep telling you, I’m a Tweeting Wizard… @bobleesays

Given a choice, this is not a time in history to “be Urban Meyer”. Urban is “on the Hot Seat” for what he knew / did not know regarding one of his assistant coaches’ marital conflicts… and what Meyer did / did not do with what he might have known. If that sounds goofy… it is!

The issue is not “were there issues in Coach Zack Smith’s marriage” but did his direct supervisor (Meyer) know about the issues and what was Meyer obligated to do about them.

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NOTE:THE RULE when it is NOT Your Coach under attack… the lyin’ sumbitch is a lyin’ sumbitch.

Try to find ONE person in Ann Arbor that is not sure Urban is guiltier than sin and oughta be “strung up” at High Noon. That is a Mission Impossible.

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Meyer essentially did nothing until publicly forced to which could determine his future as Head Coach at Ohio State. Because of Urban Meyer’s current prominence as one of the most prominent 3-4 Big Time College Football Coaches this situation is a Big Deal.

Beyond the odious sausage factory that is Big Time College Football is the issue of what are the obligations of an employer regarding an employee’s personal life. If Meyer is fired for how he dealt with this, a LOT of bosses and CEOs better LOOK OUT.

This sort of ties in with the obligations of The Washington Nationals in 2018 to provocative tweets Trea Turner posted back in high school in 2010.

Concurrent with Urban Meyer’s “what did he know?” issue is an article posted yesterday – LINK –detailing elements of Urban Meyer’s program when he was Head Coach at Florida over a decade ago. Apparently he was operating a “Culling The Herd” harassment program.

“Culling The Herd” programs have been a dirty secret in college football going back at least to 1954 when Bear Bryant ran his infamous “Junction Boys” operation at Texas A&M.

UNCCH ran its version during Bill Dooley’s first year – The Spring of 1967. I detailed that for posterity in 2004 with Carolina’s Junction Boys.– LINK –

…..When this Urban version hit yesterday I emailed the link to about 30 “survivors” of The Spring of 1967. It’s been 51 years and their memories are as clear as if it had been last month. Not an experience ever forgotten…

Truthfully these programs are still very “popular” today when a new coach takes over a struggling program. He wants to “run off” players on the roster that are not “his kind of player” in order to free up their scholarship to give to “his type of player”.

Urban was using his “harassment tactics” to run off players who turned out not to be as talented as thought when they were being recruited. Get them to “quit” to free up their scholarship. It works.

The NCAA has always turned a blind eye to this very common brutal practice. Schools likewise turn a blind eye as do “Fat Cat Boosters”. “Boosters” are, of course, ONLY interested in beating hated rivals and having “bragging rights”. How the coach achieves that is on a “I don’t ever want to know… Just WIN Coach… or else” basis.

Baylor Boosters got a little nervous when the number of coeds being raped by Art Briles’ players hit double digits and beyond… but, hey “dem boys got needs and boys will be boys…” YIKES!

Unlike 50+ years ago… these days 75+% of Big Time College FB rosters are Af-Ams. 99.99% of Fat Cat Boosters are still “good old white boys”. Their concern for the well-being of “the AfAm student- athletes (cough, cough)” in 2018 is less than it ever was. Did spectators in Rome’s Coliseum give a damn about the gladiators in the arena? Only the one they were betting on…

Remember Mary Willingham was run out of Chapel Hill for daring to suggest that UNC AfAm student-athletes BE ABLE TO READ after matriculating at The University of The People.

Do you recall any prominent Rams publicly agreeing “Gee, that seems reasonable”? Not a single one.

No Big Gator boosters at Florida cared how Urban “culled his herd”. No Big Buckeyes at Ohio State care about Zack Smith’s wife either. … Just Win Urban.

Pablo Escobar and El Chapo Guzman considered themselves “benevolent heroes” to the peasants of Columbia and Mexico. They made MEGA BILLIONS dumping cocaine into America and made a big show of building soccer fields for “the people” who saw them as modern day Robin Hoods. Sure their on-going wars with rival cartels killed a lot of innocent bystanders… and there were the executions of dirty politicians… but hey… Americans wanted their drugs and might as well buy them from Pablo and El Chapo.

I’m on #4 now. #3 might have been best yet… takes place around Wilmington. Check under A. J. Tata.

Somewhat related… If you like Tom Cruise’s Mission Impossible movies, I recommend the current one Mission Impossible Fallout. Sure… all the IM movies follow a formula… 80% car chases, motorcycle chases, dangling from really high scary places… and, of course, the goofy Life Masks.

This one has all that. The plot is “Impossible” which is why its Mission Impossible… DUH! If you really can’t stand Tom Cruise because of Scientlogy or whatever BE WARNED… he IS the star of this Tom Cruise movie.

BobLee Baseball Stuff…

Sure, I know many of you don’t like Tom Cruise, Urban Meyer, Pablo Excobar OR BASEBALL… but I do. I posted the following earlier today about The Cardinals’ new manager – Charlotte native Mike Shildt. As you will see… I really like the guy a lot.

This post, of course, BLEW UP the Cardinals Fan Site… as I thought it might…

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Yeah yeah… “It’s only been seven games… blah blah blah” But I can really like Mike Shildt if I want to and I sure do. If you are not watching his post-game interviews I really encourage you to do so.

Yes… he kinda looks like an elementary school principal… and his cap seems a size too big sitting low on his head hooding his bespectacled eyes… but this fella is the best kind of baseball junkie. He could be “that guy” who is the head baseball coach for 30 years at some small college and wins 2000 games… they name the field for him and generations of former players keep coming back because they love the guy.

Silly me… I wondered if the WOW of being an MLB manager would intimidate him but that 1.5 seasons as Cardinals bench coach got him use to the “Big Stage”… 40,000 fans… national media… being around HoFers… etc. Once one gets over that… it’s just “Baseball” … 60’6”… 90’ … 3-2 … 27 outs … bad calls and bad bounces … slumps … “give me some peanuts and crackerjacks…”.

That “small ball” we are all loving now WILL have its bad games where players WILL run into rally-killing outs… and fair weather fans will be fair weather fans when that happens. I think Mike Shildt knows that. I think he knows “Baseball” is a game of dealing with failure and frustration and, more than any other sport… it’s a 162-game marathon, not a sprint.

Each of those 162 games requires 100s of decisions… many of which will backfire… he’s matching baseball acumen with the best dugout managers in the world against the best baseball players in the world.

Yeah yeah… “…only been seven games”. A Journey of 1,000 games… begins with the first seven.

Just had a “that guy” retire at University of Mount Olive. Carl Lancaster, 31 years at UMO, 1131 wins, .700 winning percentage. NCAA DII National Champs in 2008, 15 conference championships, etc. More importantly, he was mentor/role model to hundreds of young men, both at UMO and my old high school, Eastern Wayne. He is my neighbor, and one of countless “good guys” in coaching who will never get any acclaim. As in so many areas of life, the attention follows the money. Good commentary on Urban Meyer, as well as Mike Shildt. Keep ’em coming.

Pablo Escobar and El Chapo were more comfortable dealing with board monkey types and the little people. “The Gentlemen of Cali” likened themselves to erudite BOT, BOG, self-appointed pillars of society or high roller, big donors. Lurking in the background pulling the strings, similar to what is going on now in Columbus and on every campus when the latest crisis threatens the status of big time football or basketball. Both types can be simultaneously damaging, useful, or both, depending on the situation. It’s a mess. Why are there so many messes? I’m just glad my team is clean. 😎

Trea Turner should be pleased he never had to apply for a job at a Fortune 500 company. Surviving the background check would have been difficult. Back in 2007 -my corporate days – I worked with a “good ole boy” (two or three years from full retirement) who forwarded a “dirty joke” by e-mail one Thursday morning. He was gone before lunchtime Friday. Lost his job, pension, healthcare, company car, house, wife…..everything. Ten years earlier likely would resulted in zero consequences other than the person reporting it might have been canned instead.

Me and Corporate America had filed mutual Permanent Restraining Orders against one another prior to “cubicles, laptops, prairie dog villages, and certainly social media, etc” . I have no idea how the New Rules of Common Sense work these days in CorpAmer..The Gentlemen of Cali got quite barbaric towards the end… as was inevitable.

I really don’t think you can equate the tweets or postings of an early teenager (Turner) to this Urban Meyer incident. Otherwise, I agree 100% with everything in your blog. If we were all on trial for what we said or did before we got out of high school, we’d probably all be in jail.

Big time college sports are without a doubt really pro sports. With all the crap that goes with that. The players just get compensated differently.

Trea vs Urban … ONLY in the sense that the Nationals should not be liable for whatever a player did before joining them if they had no reason to question his character. … Is Urban at all liable for his assistant’s personal actions not job-related?.I am 100% on Trea’s side with his situation. It reflects the absurdity of our societal witch hunts these days.

I never recommend ANYONE start to tweet. It really affects your overall opinion of the human race… kind of like going to The State Fair and strolling the midway. It (Twitter) is here to stay as are numerous other un-good aspects of society..I don’t have a feel for Urban’s future. tOSU HAS fired successful coaches before after non-dissimilar circumstances – Woody Hayes and Jim Tressel. We hall see.

Sometimes (often) your columns really strike a cord. I entered UNC in 1965 and finished in 1969. The “times” and the names of the players you mention in The Carolina Junction Boys brought back a ton of memories, although I was not aware of the circumstances you detailed. Kind of makes me sad, but better informed. Thanks (I think).

After I posted that column in 2004, a good friend – Gayle Bomar … contacted 90% of the guys that went thru The Spring of 1967… those that “left the program” and those that stuck it out. 50 years later there is still a shared cathartic element to their experience. We have an email group of “survivors” that keep in touch. Many familiar UNC FB names. Before he died a few years ago, Coach Dooley sorta kinda tried to explain “why” but the “why” was obvious. He wanted “his guys” to give him the best chance to win ASAP. “His guys” included McCauley, Bunting, Miller, et al…

Saw this on FB yesterday, from a FSU fan. Obviously, he doesn’t like Meyer. I am sick and tired of people that don’t accept responsibility for their actions attempting to include others, thus orchestrating their downfall. If this guy’s wife didn’t leave him after all these years, then why is it Meyer’s fault, regardless of what he knew/didn’t know? That’s just my take.

I saw an interview with “the wife” conducted by former UNC J-Schooler Kristin Balboni. BalBiz is now with Stadium – a sports streaming service. “The wife” did not come across, IMO, as all that bright. Which has nothing to do with being abused… but could affect her credibility in court.